((Some of what follows may be vaguely spoilerish. Don't read if you hate spoilers).

A DANCE WITH DRAGONS just got a little shorter.

What's happened is, I've decided to move two completed chapters, from Arianne's POV, out of the present volume and into THE WINDS OF WINTER. This is something I've gone back and forth on. Arianne wasn't originally supposed to have any viewpoint chapters in DANCE at all, but there's this... hmmm, how vague do I want be? VERY vague, I think... there's this event that would of necessity provoke a Dornish reaction. The event was originally going to occur near the end of the book, but in one of my forty-seven restructures I moved it to the late middle instead. And the timeline then required that the Dornish reaction happen in this book and not the next one, so I wrote the two Arianne chapters and was going to write a third... and a chapter from another POV that would be a necessary complement to them, and...

But no, I've restructured again, and put the original precipitating event back close to the end of the book. Which means the Arianne chapters can be returned to WINDS, where I had 'em originally. It also means that I don't have to write that third Arianne chapter and the complementary chapter from the other POV... not yet, anyway... which moves DANCE two chapters closer to completion. (The move did mean I had to revise two chapters from another POV, which took place after the event in last week's draft, but now take place before said event, but fortunately that was just a matter of tweaking a couple of lines).

I suppose this is a good news/ bad news situation.

Bad news for those who want DANCE to be really, really, really long, as long as STORMS OF SWORDS or longer. This move makes DANCE four chapters (two written, one partly written, one entirely unwritten) shorter.

But it's good news for DANCE, since I'm now two chapters (the ones I hadn't finished) closer to completion. And hey, it's even good news for WINDS OF WINTER, since I now have four chapters done for that one (an Arya, a Sansa, and two Ariannes).

This, of course, is assuming that I don't change my mind again tomorrow and put everything back the way it was last week.

I am dancing, boys and girls, I'm dancing as fast as I can. But some days it does feel as if I am dancing in circles.

Hmmm, so Winds of Winter has at least one Arya and Sansa chapter...I guess that takes the suspense out of any life-or-death situations in Dance with Dragons. Perhaps that was the spoiler I was warned about.

speaking in wes is dangerous. though i agree, and yes thank you. as to the tshirt, dancing with politics is dangerous. it could be viewed as simply piggy backing or something but global warming is rather heated and something people can jump quickly to conclusions or such things off of. on either side. so while some people get angered by the notion its us when its clearly the sun others get angry at any apparent denial of it. environmentalists may often be accepting people but not always. i say this as a person with a lot of anarcho-primitivistic inclinations who is beyond greatly concerned for the environment and pretty much just thinks were screwed. yet i also briefly doubted the warming in part though i never doubted the were terrible to life on this planet part. sorry if i come off poorly. it depends where you live and most people would be fine with such a shirt. but people can read a few words and presume a lot about your juxtaposition from their "knowledge" while being ignorant of your intended allusion.

Well, I for one am certainly hoping it'll take longer to read than the duration of my evening meal! :o)

Seriously though, always good to read one of these updates, even if it's about something new that's been taken out rather than something new that's been added. Thanks for posting these & good luck with the remaining chapters!

As always, I love getting a glimpse into your process. If you were ever to write a book chronicling your chronicling of this series, (after finishing the series itself, of course) I would snap it up in a second. Indeed, I wouldn’t trust any other writer to set so dark and perilous a journey as you’ve had in writing it, onto paper.

Thanks for the update George. It really gives a sense of how complicated this whole process is. Reading the books it seems like one is reading history, set in stone....as a reader you forget that the author is not a chronicler but an inventor. With so many characters and plot-lines I can't imagine how complicated it would be to keep all the balls in the air. The fact that the book does seem like history and it's impossible to imagine the story playing out any way other than the way it does is a tribute to you. So keep up the good work!

I'm glad to hear you are making progress and getting things where they need to be to make the story right. So have you straightened out all the Mereen business or is that still in a knot? Good luck with the writing. Hopefully this shuffling will help inspire you to get things moving along.